Category Archives: Random

Everybody’s Culture Shocking

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One of the early side effects of living in a developed foreign country is that you are the happiest person in the land. You glow. You are imbued with a teenager level of knowledge and wisdom that lets you know everything about the country and lets you see things the old, bitter veterans have never noticed before and clearly don’t understand.

Everything about your new home is better than your old, decrepit country. It’s cleaner, healthier, nicer, safer, cooler, more beautiful, more cultured and, in general everything is just more awesomer. Anything that’s bad is, just, well, that’s just something you’re going to have to get used to–it’s not YOU it’s ME–and it’s probably just your lack of language ability causing a miscommunication.

This lasts about three months.

At that three month mark all those niggling little annoyances become big annoyances and full blown culture shock. Suddenly the country you’re in is the most ass-backwards, low-life, 19th century wretched hive of scum and villainy you’ve ever had the displeasure of living in. It’s not ME it’s THEM idiots. Everyone is racist and all those people you thought were cool are just racist metro-sexual scumbags who’ve been lying to you and withholding the truth from you the entire time. You’ve been making all these efforts to communicate with your new language skills but clearly the racists and their racist ears can’t hear a foreigner, however brilliant, speak.

This feeling lasts two to three months and then suddenly the country you’re in isn’t that bad again. It’ll never be as cool as it was, but it’s pleasant. A few months later, the culture shock comes back, but not as bad. That cycle goes on and one, with slowly leveling swings between happy and culture shocked.

Even after all these years, I still experience bouts of culture shock. Normally, it doesn’t bother me that when I’m at the front of a line, especially at a train station, no one in Japan believes that’s the right line. I’ve even seen station masters look confused about which line was which when they saw me. I also find that Japanese are hyper-sensitive to little pronunciation mistakes. When I say the name of the school I work at: Rikkyo, I get lots of puzzled looks. This is because the pronunciation has a slight pause “Reek-kyo” and the “o” is long. If either of those features is left out, puzzled looks ensue, even though there’s no other school with a similar name. It’s like saying “I work at Princetown University in New Jersey” and having people go “where?” even after you’ve pronounced it several times.

However, when I find either of these things making me angry, I know I’m in culture shock. I usually try to relax at home and, whenever possible, try to watch a US news program. Several minutes of suffering that vapid and superficial emptiness, especially if it’s CNN International or NBC, usually reminds me that things could always be worse and I start feeling better. At least until the next time.

 

Who What Where When Why Which Whore Wine-Whine Merger

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Because I’m still in the middle of marking exams, and because I’m collecting a fourth batch tomorrow, English teaching has been on my mind.

Even though, as mentioned before, I’ve lost most of my native accent, the one vocal quirk I’ve kept is the one vocal quirk I shouldn’t have.

When I was attending Edison Elementary School in Hayden, Colorado, I remember one of my teachers–I think it was Miss Trimble when I was in, maybe, 6th grade–explaining that the “wh-” in words like “what” and “where” should be pronounced as “hw” making them “hwat” and “hwere”. This was done in order to distinguish them from “watt” and “wear”.  This is the reason words such as “who”, “whole” and “whore” have an “h” sound and aren’t “woo”, “wole” and “wore”. (For the record: she probably didn’t use “whore” as an example.)

Although I ignored and then forgot most of the useful things I was taught in elementary school, like, say, math, for some reason I retained that and incorporated into my way of speaking. A sentence like “Watch where you wear those clothes lest your father whine and wail and drink a bottle of  wine before butchering whales in Wales” is to me “Watch hwere you wear those clothes lest your father hwine and wail and drink a bottle of wine before butchering hwales in Wales”.

Now it turns out that this was the way most of the English speaking world once said these words. However thanks to something called the “Wine-Whine Merger” (which could be the name of a country music album) most of the English speaking world now pronounces those words the same. (For me, “white wine” is pronounced “hwite wine” or “pinot gris”.) There are a few pockets where the “Wine-Hwine Merger hasn’t been completed, mostly across the US Southern states–although I don’t remember anyone speaking that way when I was at Ole Miss or visiting friends in Georgia–and, apparently, large portions of Scotland, but I’m from Kansas and grew up in Colorado so I shouldn’t speak this way at all.

Oddly, only a couple students have ever called me on this–one of them a couple weeks ago– and asked “Why do you speak like a complete fool?” (Or something like that.)

I, of course, took full responsibility for the way I speak by blaming my Miss Trimble.

Judge Not Lest Ye Become Ye Own Enemy That is Ye

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Back in 2,000, before the turn of the millenium, I dragged my in-laws and my wife to the USA for our second wedding ceremony–for the record, there were three total in two hemispheres. While we were there, we went to Kansas City to  visit my friend Steve Brisendine and his family.

We were staying in a hotel and I had to call him and let him know our hotel phone number so we could arrange mind-numbing consumption at KC Masterpiece. (This was a compromise as we thought the shouting at Gates would scare the hell out of them.)

After a half-hour of listening to me carefully recite the numbers, Steve paused, perhaps to splash water on his face to wake up, and said something to the effect of “I can tell you’re used to talking to people who don’t speak English.”

Talking funny is one of the unusual side effects of living overseas, especially if you’re a teacher.

First, to communicate with your students, you begin to speak slowly and carefully. The challenge is to retain normal intonation: “NOW-OO EV-ER-Y-ONE LIS-TEN TO MEEEE” is not particularly helpful to  your students. (Neither, it should be added, is a rapid “Y’alllisnup”) Eventually, your native accent begins to erode. Professor and musician Dan Strack wrote the song “You’ve Lost Your Native Accent” (Sung to the tune of “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” ) in honor of this. (He also included, ominously, the line “you’ve lost nearly half your vocabulary”.)

In my case, my Kansas twang, stretched “A”s (It’s not Kansas it’s KAAANsas) and dropped “G”s (it’s lovin’ not loving) disappeared and I now have a broadcaster’s voice that would be right at home on CNN or MSNBC (unfortunately I can’t work at either place because I’m only a partial moron not a total one.)

I also, despite my best efforts, I still speak numbers slowly. In my defense, that’s often necessary when talking on the phone with airlines and banks in other countries.

The effects of this are especially brutal on people from England, Scotland and Australia, who, despite admirable resistance, eventually begin sounding a lot more like me.

Then there are the odd grunts and sighs you pick up. I also find myself bowing a lot when I go home and the occasional arigato slips out.

I do have one quirky way of speaking that’s stuck with me, but that’s fodder for another entry. (Hint: Who What Where When Why Which and Whore.)

Chocolate for Me White Stuff for Thee Times Three

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A short one tonight, as I run out of time before midnight Japan time. Damned exams.

On the occasional odd Sunday, I teach high school students who plan to study at universities in the USA, Canada, the UK or Australia. Part of my job is to prepare them for their entrance exams and to crush the hopes and dreams of the young men. (Technically, that’s my day job, too, but the goals are different.)

One of the things Japan gets very right is Valentine’s Day. On that day, although men may spring for dinner for their loved ones, it’s the women who provide the chocolate. A woman in love will make chocolate candies from scratch for her loved one. This is called honmei-choco (or chocolate of love).  It’s also common practice–although this is slowly fading out–for all women at a company to provide some kind of chocolate for the men at their offices. This is giri-choco (or courtesy chocolate).

Later, on March 14th, it’s the men’s turn to provide something on White Day, usually cookies, white chocolate, jewelry, stockings and, for men who want to sleep alone a rather long time, marshmallows. It’s also expected that the White Day gift be “triple the return”. Lately, though, that seems to have become “triple the excuses”. (I refuse to testify on the grounds that my testimony will be used against me.)

Where the hope crushing comes into play is when I have to tell the young Japanese lads heading off to the West that Valentine’s Day there is backward. The man is expected to provide chocolates, flowers, jewelry and dinner. If he doesn’t his relationship is going to suffer a bit of stress.

The final hope crushing is when I point out that there is no White Day in the West and no triple return where the women are expected to pay up. The young men ask why and I tell them it’s because they’re men. They nod and say “No, really, why?”

The young ladies in the class, by contrast, seem to like this one way responsibility idea a lot.

Now I have to post this and start thinking about what I’m going to get my girls for White Day. Actually, they didn’t give me much chocolate this year–daddies aren’t that cool–so maybe all I’ll need is some excuses. I should work on those, too.

 

One Film to in the Darkness Bind Them

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I’m in the mood to talk about stinkers today. The influence of reading too many bad student essays may be the cause of this.

The other cause is that an acquaintance of mine is about to, or already has, crossed a major turning point in his life. He is about to watch Tommy Wiseau’s epic disaster The Room.

Back when I was at university, discussions of bad films with my English Department friends always included some version of the following exchange:

A–Dude, that movie sucked.
B–Was it worse than Stalker?
C–(appearing out of nowhere and interrupting like a Greek chorus) Nothing is worse than Stalker. (C disappears.)

Stalker is a Russian sci fi film with an interesting premise and lots of atmosphere but very little else. It has a running time of 163 minutes, although it feels much longer. It was the worst movie I’d ever seen until I saw After Dark, My Sweet which is another slow atmospheric film with little going on underneath the cinematography.

Both these films satisfy my main requirement for being truly epic stinkers: They take themselves oh so seriously. Plan 9 from Outer Space is cult classic bad because it tried so hard to be Shakespeare. The remake, Independence Day, just sucked because it was a spoof of a long dead genre. Roadside Picnic, the novel Stalker was based on, had humans living in a world changed after aliens paused a bit for lunch and a toilet break and left their trash behind. Stalker wanted to be about dreams and wishes in a bleak world but instead showed us people riding carts for several minutes or watching water go calm with no action and no dialogue. Believe it or not, it was slower than Heaven’s Gate.  After Dark, My Sweet had Jason Patric, Rachel Ward, Bruce Dern and a Jim Thompson pedigree, but it went nowhere slowly and then slowed down for effect.

The Room, however, exceeds them all and it is fair to say that there only two kinds of people on this earth: those who’ve seen The Room and those who still have souls.

Tommy Wiseau’s acting style combines William Shatner’s staccato and LOOK-AT-ME! ego with Christopher Walken’s random inflection on top of an accent that is not of this world. Scenes happen almost at random; serious issues are brought up and then dropped; one character changes actors and characters because the actor had to leave–they do give the new guy a new name, just no reason for him to be there; men toss around a football from only a few feet away from each other–it’s no joke to say the football is the best actor in the film–and Wiseau can turn trashing a room into a boring, yet comic masterpiece as he pulls the drawers out with much angry fury.

After you see it, you’ll see someone throw a ball and always think “Oh, hi, Mark.” After a friend tells you a horrible story of pain and death, you’ll laugh and say “Ha ha ha. What a story, (person’s name)”. At your birthday party you’ll say “You invited all my friends, good thinking!” When you meet a woman named Lisa you’ll always think “You ahhre tearing me apahhrt, Lisa!” which is simultaneously shouted and lifeless in the film.

Also, before you are tempted to watch it, remember this: One does not simply watch The Room. Its black heart is populated by more than just bad actors. There is evil there that does not sleep. Tommy Wiseau’s eyes are ever watchful and his melted-wax ass unforgettable. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire, ash, and dust. The very dialogue you hear is a poisonous fume. Not even with 10,000 beers and all the lights on should you watch this. It is folly.

I’ve never actually met this acquaintance. He is a friend of a friend and I only know him via Facebook and email. He seemed like an interesting guy.

I wish I’d had the chance to meet him before he watched The Room, though. The person I’ve been exchanging emails and texts with for several years no longer exists. He is no longer who he was.